That’s the musical question getting the countdown for the 27th annual TD Toronto Jazz Festival with its preview performance by Willie Nelson at Massey Hall on Thursday, kick-starting a jam-packed 10 days with some 1,500 musicians in 350 concerts.

Actually, the question is asked because of Nelson, the country music icon who helped transform Nashville in the 1970s. And how do true blue jazz buffs deal with the banjo-picking, art-collecting comic Steve Martin closing the festival on Saturday, June 29 with his Steep Canyon Rangers with some good old “Grammy-winning bluegrass”?

Bluegrass and blues? “It is increasingly difficult to know where jazz starts and where it stops,” Duke Ellington, a solid enough authority, said many years ago. “I feel there is no border line.”

For starters, who really cares? That’s the easiest answer, likely expressed by many of the 500,000 music buffs expected at the festival, centred in Nathan Phillips Square with dozens of downtown satellite sites.

Jazz is a classy enough act these days to attract a big bank’s backing, but it was born as a party music — an “indecent story” tut-tutted by the New Orleans Times Picayune in 1914 — that’s not about to go silent as long as there’s a need for a butt-shaking good time.

“Call it anything you want,” a middle-aged woman said cheerily during one concert in 1987, the festival’s first year. “It’s all about fun music for smart adults, not kids.”

Other easy answers were harder to come by during a recent survey of jazz and festival insiders about just how jazzy the Toronto Jazz Festival is. About half of those contacted said “yes” to the idea of Nelson appearing at a jazz festival, pointing to the 80-year-old guitarist/singer’s jazz-rooted new album, Let’s Face the Music and Dance, or the jazz standards included on his Stardust album in 1978.

The problem targeted by the “no” side had little to do with Nelson or Martin. “They are both great musicians,” summarized a rival festival promoter. “They’re just not jazz musicians.”

Here’s a sampling of the responses.

YES

Ross Porter “I come from a world where we listen with big ears and Willie is one of those artists who transcends musical boundaries,” says Porter, CEO of JazzFM91, the local jazz station that programs Willie Nelson. “As a broadcaster running a business, I find you’ve got to be flexible. Like the festival, the station has a value system. We play the music of the highest calibre. The heart and soul of the festival is jazz. But it also represents the highest quality of musicianship. Steve Martin is a virtuoso on the banjo.”

Josh Grossman “Yes, Willie Nelson has a role,” says the festival’s artistic director. “Our festival has jazz. It also has jazz-influenced music and jazz-influencing music. So there’s room for a lot of different kinds of music. We try to balance styles and era. There’s also a new, younger audience for jazz. So we have to ask ourselves how do we present artists who play jazz but also might attract an audience that’s into hip hop? So we have a tricky and challenging formula to figure out. There’s also the need to sell tickets. And that’s where Willie Nelson and Steve Martin come in.”

Pat Taylor “Of course we’re still a jazz festival,” says the festival’s co-founder, with Toronto saxophonist Jim Galloway. “I remember when we first brought in Harry Connick Jr and we’re told, ‘That’s not jazz, that’s pop.’ Festival promoters have being hearing this going back to the ’50s. Like every other festival we’ve had to stretch our boundaries.”

Arnold Schwisberg “Yes, because it’s all about balance,” says Schwisberg, artistic director of Jazz on The Mountain at Blue, July 5 to 7 at Blue Mountain Village near Collingwood. “Young people coming to jazz are well aware of the music’s roots, but they want to see how jazz is incorporated into what’s happening now. So I have no problem with Willie Nelson at a jazz festival. Hopefully people coming out to hear Willie will after go to a club and hear more jazz. I’m conscious as a programmer of the fact though there’s a prejudice against jazz. I love Ornette Coleman. But I am not going to program just the avant garde. No one gets into jazz just listening to John Coltrane. But if you start listening to Kenny G. then you might go on to listen to others.”

NO

John MacLeod “Willie Nelson grew up in a time when he was exposed to all sorts of things. But he’s not a jazz musician,” says MacLeod, a U of T jazz professor and trumpeter/composer. “I can see why lots of jazz musicians want to listen to him. I like Yo-Yo Ma. I’ve played with Aretha Franklin. But that didn’t make it jazz. Josh (Grossman) is in an awkward position. It’s a practical thing. He wants people to come. But what I’d do is make the festival a smaller festival, a smaller local jazz festival.”

Richard Flohil “Willie Nelson has done some interesting things with Wynton Marsalis,” points out promoter/publicist Flohil. “But I find it weird that Steve Martin, as excellent a bluegrass player as he is, is included. I sometimes subscribe to the idea it’s OK if an artist helps bring people into the tent. So Steve Martin at a folk festival? Yes. At a bluegrass festival? Of course. But at a jazz festival?”

Jim Galloway “Maybe it’s time to drop the word jazz,” says the festival co-founder. “The organizers have my sympathy. They have hard decisions to make. It’s hard to have a big festival and still call it a jazz festival. But I don’t think the sponsors would really mind if the word ‘jazz’ wasn’t used.”

Peter Goddard is a freelance writer and former Toronto Star jazz critic. He can be reached at peter_g1@sympatico.ca

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